


A Collision of Stars

by undeadpsycho13



Category: Percy Jackson & The Olympians (Movies), Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Soulmate Countdown Watch, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, I Don't Even Know, I KNOW THERE ARE A LOT OF RELATIONSHIP TAGS BUT REALLY ITS ONLY PERCICO, I Tried, I have too many tags, Insecurity, M/M, What Have I Done, but don't worry it makes sense, i love you guys too, i'll stop now, it started out kinda poetic but then everything just went to hell, pretty obvious that i left this fic to sit for a while and then picked it up again, sorry solangelo and percabeth shippers, weird pov changes, whatever, whoops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 08:56:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9314501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undeadpsycho13/pseuds/undeadpsycho13
Summary: Percy was radiant, like the sun, and like the sun he attracted life forms, but like the sun none dared get too close.Except Nico di Angelo.Nico was like the moon to his sun, the shadow to his light, and though they could not be more different, well, opposites attract.  Of course Nico, who would later major in science, would strongly oppose this idea, listing hundreds of reasons why this does not make sense.  But Percy, who loved the art of language, would just laugh and tell him to stop being such a science nerd and embrace the metaphor.  The sun and the moon.  The moon and the sun.  The moon revolves around the sun.  Everything revolves around the sun.And the sun, though it has no need of a tiny moon, loves the small insignificant satellite anyway, in his own way.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thali_Quinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thali_Quinn/gifts).



> heyyyyy Thalia_Quinn this is the fic i promised you XD. im really sorry about how long it took, i swear i had most of it done since like last month.
> 
> anyways, this is for you, its kinda a soulmate fic to match the one you gave me, hope u like it XD
> 
> oh right sorry, i still need the disclaimers. so, for the first time in forever, the title is purely mine, and anything that sounds even remotely similar is just a coincidence. HOWEVER, the soulmate watch countdown au was taken from this website:
> 
> http://silentpeaches.tumblr.com/post/125291322610/soulmate-au-story-ideas
> 
> they are technically for minewt fics (shhhh, dont tell), but meh.
> 
> also, the idea of saying "when he was (age)" was inspired by the fic Shutter by amoleofmonsters, and its brilliant.
> 
> enjoy the fic :D

Ever since Nico learned about it, he loved the idea of a soulmate, loved the idea of being loved, being accepted, unconditionally.  He constantly checked his the watch around his wrist, begging it to do something other than emit a soft ticking noise, the hands moving in a never-ending counterclockwise cycle around the smooth glass face.

When he went to school, Nico was taught.  Of course, at home he had never known.  Hades didn’t care about his youngest, to the extend where he wouldn’t even tell him about what the watch around his wrist did.  The clock was a countdown, a countdown to the fated meeting of one’s soulmate, Nico now learned, eagerly, soaking in the information like a sponge in water.  And yet, unlike every other child in the classroom, his watch was analog, and this is what puzzled him the most.  Did this mean he would never meet his soulmate?  Did this mean he would never be loved?  Did this mean… Endless possibilities rose from the depths of his mind, each one worse than the previous.

As a child, Nico was always second.  Second child born to the di Angelo family, second best marks in his grade, second to receive his grade six graduation certificate in their class.  But all of these things were fickle, none of them mattered much.  What bothered him most was that, in his father's eyes, he was always second to Bianca.  No, never had he once thought to blame his beautiful, perfect, compassionate sister, but that didn’t stop the bitter thoughts from seeping into his mind like poison.  No matter how many _A_ s he received, no matter how many awards he was presented from various competitions, Bianca always held a higher place in their father’s heart, always bore a higher standing in his mind.  Perhaps it was because he liked boys instead of girls, perhaps it was because Nico reminded their father too much of their deceased mother.  Nico would never know, did not want to know, he only wanted his father to notice his presence, see him without a negative light in his eyes.  For Bianca, Nico pretended not to care, for Bianca, Nico would do anything.  But on the inside, this unfair judgement weighed him down, leached the happiness out of his life.  From the inside, it killed him.

And then.  And then Bianca died, and left Nico spiralling without direction through the vast space that we call the universe.  He was alone, his father didn’t care, his mother was dead, he was by himself.  And so he put all his faith, all his everything, onto the tiny device that lay ticking on his left wrist, day and night.  It was the thought that one day, one day someone would come, one day someone would sweep him off his feet into a world he had never imagined, that kept him going.  And yet days turned to months, and months to years, and still the clock kept ticking, and still no soulmate appeared.  Still no one came to claim him.  Still he found nobody of note.

When he was thirteen, he met somebody.  Not his soulmate, for the hands on the face of his watch never ceased to continue.  Not his soulmate, and yet still Nico fell head over feet for the boy with eyes like the sea, an act Nuco deemed downright unfair.

Percy had known Bianca.  Nico never found out how, maybe he would ask later, but Percy had known her.  And yet, unlike every other person who knew both Nico and Bianca while the latter was still alive, he did not make constant comparisons between the two, did not look at Nico with eyes that said: _She could have done better_.  Instead, he judged him by his own character, judged him by whom he was, not by a ghost of his past.  When they did talk about the girl who brightened both their lives by just a smidge, like a flickering star that guides one through the night sky, they wouldn’t talk about Nico.  It was, for once, as though talking about two different people, and not two twisted into one.  They would reminisce at how her ebony hair would swish around her head with the flux and flow of a tide, like a liquid halo, look back on when her obsidian eyes would shine with pleasure listening to her chatty little brother, or humorous best friend, talk about the day's events, as though she had not been there to witness the acts herself.  They would remember the times when she would immerse herself into books, the look of concentration on her face when she was faced with a word foreign to her vocabulary.  They would remember her perfections, and her flaws, and miss them both.

Percy knew Nico better than anyone ever had.   _And anyone ever will,_ Nico pledges to himself.   _Because that's what I want_ , he reasons to himself, _That’s all I’m ever asking_.  But no, he knows that’s not true deep inside, no, that’s not all he’s asking, no, he wants Percy all to himself, he wants Percy to be his soulmate, he wants Percy to see him as more than just a friend.  But he knows that this is just wishful thinking, and so he pushes them aside and thinks of more plausible things to wish for.  But really, it hurts.  It hurts that where Percy sees Nico as just a nice guy who he’s friends with, Nico sees Percy as that and so much more, so, so much more.  But Nico has already experienced so much hurt, so much pain, that this is easy to push aside, this is easy to endure.  Oh, who is he kidding?  No, this pain is worse that anything he could ever imagine.  Percy was so close yet so far, almost touching but not quite, like asymptotes.  A line that continually approaches a curve, and yet does not meet it.  Ever.

Percy was radiant, like the sun, and like the sun he attracted life forms, but like the sun none dared get too close.  Except Nico di Angelo.  Nico was like the moon to his sun, the shadow to his light, and though they could not be more different, well, opposites attract.  Of course Nico, who would later major in science, would strongly oppose this idea, listing hundreds of reasons why this does not make sense.  But Percy, who loved the art of language despite his dyslexia, would just laugh and tell him to stop being such a science nerd and embrace the metaphor.  The sun and the moon.  The moon and the sun.  The moon revolves around the sun.  Everything revolves around the sun.  And the sun, though it has no need of a tiny moon, loves the small insignificant satellite anyway, in his own way.

It was true though.  Percy had no lack of friends, a whole group of people from various places with a variety of interests surrounding him most of the time, laughing with him, talking with him.  And this made Nico… well, it made Nico just the tiniest bit jealous.  Just the tiniest bit?  Well… maybe a little more.  Like, maybe, to the extent where he would think of a hundred different ways to murder Jason Grace when he laughed with Percy like hyenas.  Even though he knew Jason was straight and had a girlfriend.  But still.

And because of this, one question nagged at Nico’s conscience, one question was asked repeatedly in his head: Why did Percy insist on being friends with Nico, why did he allow Nico to break the barriers of his mind and let him in when no one else dared?  Never did any of Percy’s friends step foot in his apartment, never did any of Percy’s other friends talk to him about family, about siblings, about personal matters.  Even so, Percy’s friends kind of had levels, Nico observed from the sidelines, proud to claim the spot highest in this imaginal hierarchy of The Friends of Percy.  The highest, Nico imagined, would be Thalia and Luke and Bianca, even though Thalia was at boarding school and Luke was out of the country and Bianca was… well, Bianca was dead.  Next would be Frank and Hazel and Reyna, two parts of Nico’ mind agreed, and then at the lowest level would be Jason and Piper and Leo.  Not that these layers meant much to anyone else other than Nico, but whenever he saw Percy with the others, he would remind himself that he was at the top and, as if on cue, Percy would look over at him and wink, and then continue on like nothing happened, even though for Nico everything just did all at once.

When Nico was fourteen, a year after Percy crashed into his life and burned it to the ground, only to build it into something better, something brilliant, he stopped caring.  Stopped caring about soulmates and the whole ordeal.  He vowed that if he couldn’t have Percy, he wouldn’t have anyone.  And then he noticed.  Percy had no watch around his wrist.  The first time he noticed, he was too afraid to ask, to afraid to inquire.  A year later, he found out.

It was late January, and Nico had just turned fifteen, and he and Percy were eating blue cake (because Percy insisted).  They were just sitting there, in a peaceful, easy silence, when Percy suddenly said,

“I know you're wondering where my watch is.”

A simple statement, yet it reduced Nico to nothing but terrified stuttering.  Was Percy mad?  Had Nico intruded too much into personal space?  A million worries whipped through his head in a torrent, a million questions filtered from his brain to his mouth, yet his tongue refused to comply.  So he just nodded, like an idiot.

“I destroyed it.”

Nico now turned to stare at him properly, mouth agape, blinking almost uncomprehendingly, questioning silently.

“I destroyed it.  I don’t want some external force to decide who I’m supposed to love, who I’m supposed to spend my life with.  I want to control my own life, don’t you?”

Mutely, Nico nodded.  He didn’t completely agree, but disagreeing meant explaining himself, and he was still too much in shock to speak.  To think someone would have the audacity to destroy their watch, to cheat fate… It was unthinkable, unheard of, but Percy was Percy, and so Nico could not bring himself to judge him.

When Nico was sixteen, Percy kissed him.  It wasn’t much, just a chaste brush of lips, but it meant the world to Nico.  The world, and more.  It was more symbolic, like a trigger that opened a thousand doors, like a doorway that lead to a thousand more.  And so they fell in love with each other once again, and then another, over and over, a thousand-fold.  They became lovers.

And then.  And then, one day, when Nico was seventeen and Percy nineteen, they met someone.  Someone of importance.  Annabeth Chase, whose watch had coincidentally, or perhaps not so coincidentally, stopped.  Percy’s would-have-been soulmate.  It made Nico’s stomach churn with jealousy, that this woman, this perfect woman with blond hair that glowed like filaments of gold, with clashing grey eyes that sparkled with intelligence, was Percy’s soulmate.  If Percy were the sun, Annabeth would be a star that could meet his standards, meet his brilliance, with her own.  That the fates had decreed for this goddess of a woman to spend her eternity with _his_ boyfriend, it made Nico sick.  It wasn’t fair, how things were.  It wasn’t fair.  No one had never chosen Nico over anything, anyone, why should it be any different this time?

He should have known.  Percy was Percy afterall, ever defiant, ever obstinate, refusing to comply to the forces who had chosen his soulmate, even if said soulmate’s beauty was comparable to Aphrodite, even if her charisma far exceeded even a siren.  No, instead he opted for Nico, the boy who hid in the shadows, the notoriously friendless child with a dark past and a darker mind.  

 _He chose Nico over Annabeth_.

And Nico, Nico could not believe it, did not believe it, would not believe it.  At least at first.  In what world would anyone, especially Percy, choose a mortal over a goddess, a shadow over endless light, a… a boy over a girl?  No, this was not possible, could not be possible.  But then he saw.  He saw in the sparkle in his eye when they laughed together, saw in the curve of his lips when Nico did something stupidly laughable, saw in the redness in his cheeks when they threw snow at each other… he saw something he didn’t see before, something that only appeared when Nico was with Percy.   _Maybe_ , Nico thought to himself, _Maybe I_ do _mean more to him than the others.  Maybe I_ am _special_.

Nico, for once in his life, dared to hope.

When Nico was seventeen, he smashed his watch, a hammer shattering the delicate glass face, ripping through the fine machinery that lay underneath it.

When Nico was seventeen, he decided that soulmates were stupid, and so he cheated fate.

When Nico was seventeen, he realised Percy would love him, even with his flaws, even with his past, even with his darkness.  And so he threw away his insurance.

For a year, everything went as expected.

But then.  When Nico was eighteen, while Percy was at a swim meet and Nico was wandering aimlessly around on the streets, he saw someone, over the heads of the people in the crowds, someone his mind drew him too, for no apparent reason.  It was a blond boy, around his age, with blue eyes that shone cobalt like the sky.  Pretty, but not his type.  So why did he feel so drawn?  And then the thought stuck him.

_This was his soulmate._

Nico did a double-take, and so did the other boy.  Just like in one of those sappy cliche movies, their eyes met across the street.  And, just like one of those sappy cliche movies, the other boy opened his mouth to speak, but Nico didn’t want to hear whatever he tried to say, didn’t want to hear it for fear that he would be captivated by the other.  So he ran, all the way back to Percy’s apartment, and slammed the door, breathing heavily.  When his boyfriend found him, he was sitting on the large bed with facing the window stiffly, remnants of tears still clinging to his lashes, but other than that there was no sign that he was or had ever been upset.

Percy knew better.

He also knew that asking him straight up would be pointless.  So he sat on the edge of the bed, next to Nico, close but not touching, waiting for Nico to open up to him, to say something, to say anything.  Finally, as expected, Nico was the one to break the delicate silence,

“I met him.”

Barely more than a sound, barely more than a whisper, but it was there.  Percy stiffened; both knew without doubt who “him” was.

Percy had never been a jealous person.  In all his life, he had never felt particular hatred towards anyone because of something they possessed that he didn’t.  He never looked at the rich kids and thought: I wish I were like them.  Admittedly, he did look at all the others around him thinking _I wish I were like them, I wish my father hadn’t abandoned my mother_ , did look at others and think, _I wish I were like them, I wish my stepfathers didn’t beat me_.  Always, though, he had been happy with what he had, lived day after day with no regrets.  And yet now, a foreign feeling welled up inside him choking him from the inside.  It was wholly not fair why this other person could have what he desired most.  It was wholly unfair that this person could come and snatch his Nico away from him.

But the world was unfair.

So instead of crying out and screaming like he wanted to, all he said was,

“Alright.”

Stunned, Nico turned towards him.

“You don’t mind?”

 _Of course I mind_ , a voice inside Percy’s mind screamed, so loud it rattled Percy’s skull.

“No, I don’t mind.”

No greater lie had ever been told.

 _Please don’t leave me for him_ , Percy wanted to say, shout, to Nico.

“If you want him, you can have him instead.”

 _No no no no no_... 

“Do I really mean that little to you?”

Now, Percy was stumped.  What was that supposed to mean?

“Am I not worth even a fight?  Are you just going to give up on me like that?  Do you have no faith in me?”

Every word increased in volume, until Nico was practically screaming at him.  All this time, Percy just sat there, stunned at the sudden outburst.

“I–– I thought that’s what you would have wanted.”

“You’re too selfless sometimes, Percy.  Won’t you fight for the things you want?”

Nico and his conscience were saying the exact same thing to him, one in a deafening whisper, the other in a screeching silence.

“Of course.  But what do _you_ want?”

“I want you.”

They never spoke of the other boy again, but he always lingered at the back of their minds, hidden somewhere in the depths of their minds.

Nico never met him again either, but he found, or rather rediscovered, that he never did need to meet him again.  Percy was enough.  Percy was always enough, had always been enough.

Maybe the shattered watch that used to hang on his wrist mirrored his shattered fate, lingering in his mind, untouched.

Percy was more than enough.

**Author's Note:**

> soo... whaddya think ppl? i strongly welcome (<==that makes no sense) criticism, or even just a quick kudo or bookmark would be gr8. 
> 
> i did spend my whole christmas working on this fic and the pjo one about the phone, if any of you have read that one. 
> 
> for those of you who have, KNOW THAT I DID NOT DID NOT DID NOT ABANDON IT, i have been working hard on it and its like twice the size of my normal chapters. i will be updating on the 19th :)
> 
> about this fic, im really sorry about all the plot holes and typos and whatnot. THE PLOT HOLES ARE KILLING ME IM SERIOUS. also, im terribly sorry for the horrible ending, i couldn't think of anything else to end it with :\
> 
> i feel like i have something else to say, but i can't remember. this happens wayyyy too much to me, i hate it. whatevr. good bye 4 now :P


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